February 25, 2009

Maturation

We met with the our oncologist yesterday and she told us that the pathology on the tumor shows that it is maturing. Depending on where they took measurements it is 5-50% mature.

She is planning to schedule a post-surgery MRI in a month or so, once all the swelling has gone down from her surgery. From there she will have MRIs every three months, and urine tests every month. They carefully watch the VMA and HVA levels in her urine that are markers for the chemicals that the tumor puts out. Those numbers have been steadily climbing over time, falling only after she has had a surgery and tumor is removed, and then climbing again. Our second oncologist, Dr. M., has told us that she expects to see these numbers rise for quite some time while the tumor matures.

We have an appointment in a couple of weeks for a consult with the surgeon for removing her Hickman line!! The line that has been taped to her chest for the past year.

It will be quite some time before we can know that she is cancer-free. This is a process that can take a very long time, and I don't know if we will ever stop holding our breath after every MRI. But it is fantastic news to hear, especially as we are coming up on the one-year anniversary of her diagnosis. If I had known then that it would take a year to finally hear some good news...well, I don't know that I would've made it.